Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

Talking of stalking,....

Go to freebmd and put in the parents' surnames (both of them) and see what comes up - look at the locations and then see if any/all of them are applicable.

Wait for a findmypast free weekend and type all the names you know of and see if there were any baptisms.

Use the free electoral roll search sites to pump what you know in and see if it gives any results that look likely.

Then, look for deaths in the local papers of the areas you think they might have lived in (in case any died) .....

Then hit google to look for facebook pages, news items, etc.

All depends if it's John Smith and Mary Ann .... or Archibald Cumquat and his wife Philomena

I've no access to any of the paid sites at the moment, but happy to see what I can dig up - although I've no heuristically gained information that can help me to "sniff them out by instinct".

e.g. you might find a Mr J Smith, whippet breeder .... and you KNOW he had 3 when he was at school, but I don't, so you'd head towards that as a lead, I'd dismiss it at first.

PasturesNew

Made a big vegetable/tomato soup in the SC ... that's good, right?
Except you then get 8 hours to think about food while it's cooking .... and I ended up dropping a dumpling into the top while it was still veg stew - and having a portion of veg stew & a big dumpling

I've now decanted/scrunched the remainder up into soup .... which isn't nearly so exciting/interesting as dumplings to be honest.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

Go to freebmd and put in the parents' surnames (both of them) and see what comes up - look at the locations and then see if any/all of them are applicable.

Wait for a findmypast free weekend and type all the names you know of and see if there were any baptisms.

Use the free electoral roll search sites to pump what you know in and see if it gives any results that look likely.

Then, look for deaths in the local papers of the areas you think they might have lived in (in case any died) .....

Then hit google to look for facebook pages, news items, etc.

All depends if it's John Smith and Mary Ann .... or Archibald Cumquat and his wife Philomena

I've no access to any of the paid sites at the moment, but happy to see what I can dig up - although I've no heuristically gained information that can help me to "sniff them out by instinct".

e.g. you might find a Mr J Smith, whippet breeder .... and you KNOW he had 3 when he was at school, but I don't, so you'd head towards that as a lead, I'd dismiss it at first.

FreeBMD looked really promising, but I couldn't find the information I need there. The reason is that they have info only up to around 1975. It's all being done by volunteers, and that's where they've got to. I guess that I can't complain considering it's a free service.

The electoral roll service has turned up a likely candidate for my person, but I still can't see whether there are any kids.

I can see how you can get sucked into spending a lot of time on this.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

I can see how you can get sucked into spending a lot of time on this.

Yes, because the answers aren't sitting there to simply be lifted.

It's like all record sets, at different stages everywhere. In my birth county they've managed to reach the 1980s ... and every day somebody's adding more.

But, it's always worth a look.

For kids, also check familysearch.org
Put in the person's name on the left and their rough birthdates and see what turns up - then start to filter it down.

The trouble is, with birth registrations you can't tell who the parents are unless you buy a certificate to look (£10). So, you hope they've been baptised and that those parish records have been transcribed and are available to you for free, otherwise you have to buy a whole CD from the Family History Society (or find somebody that will do a lookup for you).

It's not cheap/easy - the information's either available or not. It's either free or behind a paywall. And it's only by trying to fathom it out, attacking it from every angle, that you'll stand a chance of getting all the answers for free.

If they're odd surnames for both parents and if the area's been put into freeBMD for the years their kids were born, you can get an instant result.

It's all very hit and miss.

You can't have what doesn't exist.

FreeBMD doesn't give you the actual parents' names - just the name of the child and the mother's maiden name. Brown & Smith, no chance. Hazzibald & Flopsaday, good chance ....

PasturesNew

Also: Newer stuff's harder as there's less online. Unless the person's got a digital trace via social networking, or their own website etc, they can be hidden to you.

Even old stuff you have to find all the parts, then fit them together.

e.g. I found 4 children in a family in the 1911 Census.
Running the parents' names/location through FreeBMD I found two more potential children, born 1913 and 1915, - so added them to the tree.
Old newspapers then gave me one of the new children getting married and children of the children I had on the tree were his bridesmaids and his sister (that I knew about) got a mention. I then checked for his death and found it and he'd died in the same house that his father had. I then checked his probate and his brother-in-law was executor. So I knew that those extra 2 kids WERE part of the same tree.

It's all about picking up what pieces of the pot you can - and glueing it all together to see if it still looks like a pot

If he'd not been prominent enough to have his wedding in the paper and if he'd not had any probate/will I'd have simply never known.... because the information I'd have needed wouldn't exist.... unless I paid serious money for official certificates. e.g. his birth certificate to prove parentage = £10. As he was my great-great-great-grandmother's 6th brother's 3rd grandson ... I'd not waste money doing that.

vivatifosi

Try 192.com. It won't give you the address without paying, but if there are several in the same house it will tell you.

GDB2222

I'm not averse to spending a modest amount if I can get straight to the answers I need, rather than messing around. However, I don't know which site will give me the info I want for £10-20. Or whether they are going to want hundreds or thousands.

I have picked up quite a bit of info. That free electoral roll idea turned up trumps, thanks.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

I'm not averse to spending a modest amount if I can get straight to the answers I need, rather than messing around. However, I don't know which site will give me the info I want for £10-20. Or whether they are going to want hundreds or thousands.

I have picked up quite a bit of info. That free electoral roll idea turned up trumps, thanks.

There are some proper registers at the physical record office that, I think, you can look through for yourself - what you'd be looking for is births with the correct set of two surnames.

The records there might be digitised in some way, making that search easier for you - and/or the staff might be able to key it in and come up with suggestions.....

It all depends on the record office where the births were registered.

Once found, you then buy each certificate. That will give you the full parents' names and then you'll know that you've found children and their names.

It's difficult as every county works differently, so the office you're after might be close to you, or inaccessible; they might be really on the ball/helpful or ill-prepared and manual-based.

So, which office is it? Somebody reading might know that office and their system.

The trouble is, with record sets and areas and offices being different ... it's nigh on impossible to help more without a name, location etc to try for ourselves to see how far we get to then advise what we'd do when we hit the brick wall.

vivatifosi

Pastures, found this, didn't know if you could use it in your searching:

http://cdm16445.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16445coll4

Assuming you didn't know about it already that is.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

....

Cheers, it's always better to speak out, rather than assume.

That's a link that made it to my list about a year ago, but it's not been of much use as my sort of people didn't come to the notice of those sorts of publications.

I used to spend ages pawing through all the old directories, only to find nobody anywhere

From a Directory perspective, while they were being published, my people didn't live in areas where all residents were listed (towns). They moved into towns after Directories stopped listing individuals.

As for the villages coverage, my lot were never significant members of society, such that they'd get a mention.

They were 99% Ag Labs, not in business at all, not independent means, not noticeable. They'd shuffle between their house, the field, the pub, without ever making it to a directory